...and the kitchen sink too

Comparing two ads, the first is a NRCC ad against Alan Grayson. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ls8qnM32U&feature=player_embedded]

Grayson you may remember from a few posts ago, took his opponent's quote out of context to make it seem like he was saying the very thing he was denouncing.  That's pretty despicable stuff. And the NRCC goes after him..., sort of.... They attack him for that, and for two or three other quotes to get the payoff line, "He's a national embarrassment." That's a good payoff, but I'm not there with them when they get there.  They've thrown too many things out there, Obama Health Care, comparing Christianity to the Taliban, I don't remember what else, but it's all too much.

They had a great case to make, what Grayson did was unethical, he lied, and tried to manipulate the public. It's one thing to be an embarrassment, it's another thing to be immoral and a liar.  If the NRCC had seen fit to focus their attack on that one act, I think it would have been enough, and a devastating attack, as it is,by trying to put too much into the attack,  I think this attack misses the mark or at the very least, deflects off of Grayson.

The other ad is against old Roy Blunt:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLyeDD-xNv8]

This one hits the mark, pretty effectively, and it adds a chuckle at the end for the effort. It also uses multiple examples to drive a point home. Why does this one work, while the NRCC one doesn't?

I think it comes down to the concept of Schwerpunkt. Essentially schwerpunkt is "was a center of gravity towards which was made the point of maximum effort, in an attempt to seek a decisive action. Ground, mechanized and tactical air forces were concentrated at this point of maximum effort whenever possible."  The Grayson attack doesn't concentrate it's efforts,so it can't break through, the Carnahan ad on the other hand is focused, it attacks along one access and stays focuses on that axis.

Next time you're working on an attack/negative ad, ask yourself are you concentrating your attack at a point of maximum effort? Or is your attack spread out?

Don't see this everyday

Don't often see a spat between consultants over plagiarism or maybe immitation is the more favorable description: The ad in question is this Grayson ad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL51grs5JDo&feature=player_embedded]

Compared with this Spitzer ad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YtdxY_woS8&feature=player_embedded]

It's been a bad day for the Grayson consultant, what with lying in one ad, and being hit for plagiarism in this ad. I have to say, I have a lot of respect for the creator of the original, Jimmy Siegel and the Spitzer ads in general, and right now not much respect for the folks who are making the Grayson ads.

I don't agree with Siegel's assertion "you're not allowed to shamelessly copy things in other mediums, but for some reason some media consultants have no shame."

I think a good ad can and should be shamelessly copied if it's relevant to the race you're running,it's authentic to your candidate, and you can bring something new to it. My problem with the imitation in this case is that it just feels like Grayson didn't really add anything new, didn't "make it his own." It just copied the form of the Spitzer ad (down to the 8mm flash frames) and just threw Grayson in there with his kids instead of kids by themselves.  It misses the subtlety and freshness of the original, neither parodying it nor adding to it.

Siegel got this part right, "And to add insult to injury, they did a lousy job."

One small problem

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvB-mHXcWzg] Some good hits in this ad, and it's a nice twist  -- usually it's Republicans saying Democrats are in line with the Taliban or the terrorists or whatever.

Oh, what's the problem?  Just this little fact:

"Grayson has lowered the bar even further. He's using edited video to make his rival appear to be saying the opposite of what he really said," the nonpartisan site, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, wrote on its blog Monday."

The truth? Oh, that.... Here's the thing, you got your opponent with some pretty extreme votes. That's some pretty good evidence, why overplay your hand, by taking his comments out of context and deliberately misrepresenting them? It's just stupid.  Now instead of voters hearing how extreme what's his name is, they hear Grayson lied about what's his name. And the extreme part? That sort of gets lost, ignored or worse, becomes part of the lie.

On a personal level, an ad like this makes me angry.  It's one thing to spin, to try and create a narrative with your opponents record or even ascribe motives to their actions, it's another thing to knowingly lie and distort. Either the person who made this ad, doesn't have any morals, are so contemptuous of voters they think they can lie to them with impunity, are amateurs or all three.  This kind of ad is why folks hate political ads. There really should be some penalty for this kind of shamelessness.